Cassette 7: Sree Chitra Art Gallery (1979)/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires'' CLARISSA: Hello and welcome to the Sree Chitra Art Gallery. I am the gallery director Clarissa Nair. If you are listening to this audioguide, then you are currently experiencing our Reflections exhibition. We have dedicated ourselves to finding a range of works by some of the world’s most highly regarded contemporary artists. With this exhibition we aim to confront art’s role as a reflection of the society in which it is created, by featuring a series of works that depict reflections themselves. If art is itself a mirror, what can we say about what we see contained within art? It is up to each of us to decide for ourselves. All of us at the Sree Chitra would like to welcome celebrated artist and scholar Roimata Mangakahia so provide her insights on this audioguide. As the series includes two of her own works, we hope you will find the glimpse behind the process enlightening. #TONE# ROIMATA: Humanity has always been obsessed with its reflection. The famed tale of narcissus is remembered so well, in part because it is the tale of all of us. We look for reflections of humanity in the movements of the stars, in a tree that grows, through a trick of chance, to embrace another tree, in the cat that defies its stars to become best friends with a dog. We anthropomorphise wildly, perhaps from a desire to feel that we are not alone, that we are not the only thinking, feeling, planning beings in the universe. But because we look so hard for our own reflection, we can never really trust its view. Do otters hold hands while they sleep because of intimacy, or is it simply the instinctive awareness that if they lose each other in the moving waters they will be more likely to die? It is a question that doesn’t matter to the vast majority of the population, of course - who would want an honest answer when wilful ignorance makes the world so that much easier to deal with? But it is worth considering the fact that our view of ourselves, as we see it reflected in the world around us, is subject to the most determined of biases. It is not necessary that you consider these issues while viewing this exhibition, you are here to enjoy yourself, after all, and thoughts like these can lead to melancholy. They shouldn’t really, when you think about it, the instinctual drive of animals doesn’t lessen the choices and feelings of people. But they are thoughts worth pondering at some point, so perhaps you will save them for some melancholy afternoon, when the sun is low and the air is still and the world demands nothing from you. For now, let us consider the works on display. #TONE# One - Women Alone, by Vanessa Nguyen (pronounced “win”) I have always believed that Vanessa Nguyen has never had the kind of attention she deserves for her work. At the beginning of her career one or two key critics described her work as derivative, and she became rather unfashionable. With the distance of time, however, and with a bit more information, we are perhaps better placed to question that assessment. This particular painting features a group of three women - they are similar looking, perhaps sisters - grouped around a pool of water. Notice the bleak sky above them, and the skeletal trees - but the women themselves appear happy and comfortable, with their dark hair shining, and their expressions peaceful. The woman in the centre even has her eyes closed, not in sleep but in bliss. Their reflections in the pool, however, tell a different story. Look into the pool. Deeply. All similarity between the three women is gone. The woman on the left has grown tall and imposing, her hair a vibrant silver, her face haggard, and haughty, her eyes accusing as they gaze out at the viewer. What is she accusing you of? What have you done? Opposite her, the woman on the left looks faded, her entire being is cast over with a sheen of grey, there is an absence about her. She gazes out of the canvas, but not quite directly at the viewer. See how her gaze is unfocused. She is small and weighed down by hair that, rather than being the glossy black of her original, is a muted, faded brown. The woman in the middle, the one in sleepy bliss, has changed the least at first glance into the pool. You can see how her hair is still glossy, her arms are still plump, her body still seems relaxed. Her eyes, which are closed in reality are open in the pool - in fact they are widened. The irises are bright red and seem almost luminous. The widening of her eyes in a face that still seems calm lends a certain manic energy to the figure, don’t you think? Look at her eyes. What can she see that you cannot? Do you wish you could see it too? Or is it better not to know? Painted in wide strokes, the images in the painting seem almost to blend into each other - with a careless glance, it is easy to mistake the reflected image for the real. Look at the painting with great care. The first time I saw this painting I took it for a copy of one I had seen many times before. But this was painted much too long ago for that to be possible. #TONE# Two - Self Portrait, by Roimata Mangakahia It is never easy to discuss one’s own work. It is difficult enough to reduce the grand visions that flow through your head into oil and canvas, trying to find words to talk about the oil and canvas of it reduces it further still. This is all made harder, naturally, when the work in question is a self-portrait. A self-portrait is an inherently introspective work - it is an artist’s attempt to better understand themselves, it is not necessarily an attempt to explain. It is not necessarily an act of communication. Nevertheless. I started this self-portrait while staying in my friend Claudia Atieno’s house off the coast of Cornwall. I was there for some time, and during that time I became much better acquainted with both of the artists I talk about on this guide. The painting was done in my own room in the house - a small room on the top level, with a small mirror. The painting shows my face partially reflected in the mirror - I am not looking at myself properly, it is as if I have just glanced up and there it is, reflecting half my face back at me. I look casual, careless, as if I am moving swiftly through life. This is just an effect, of course, I studied my attitude and expression carefully as I made this painting. Study my attitude, my expression. Study it with whatever care you can muster. Over my shoulder you can see some of the room. A bed, haphazardly made. A chair, playing at being a coatrack. A window. It is a simple picture of a simple person in her simple room going about her simple life. But no life is really simple, when you pay attention to the details. Look through the window, and you can see grass leading to the edge of the island, with the sea beyond it. There are a few trees scattered around. At the very edge of the cliff, slight, and indistinct from this distance, just a dot in the middle of a reflection, there is a figure standing, waiting to jump. #TONE# Three - The Three Sisters, by Claudia Atieno. The Three Sisters was one of Claudia’s most successful works in the middle of her career. It is presumed to be inspired by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, and is certainly far from the only work depicting that particular play. The three women are placed around a low pool of water, on a bleak moor, their figures rendered in bold, wide brush strokes, and it is difficult sometimes to see where one figure starts and one ends. The women all look alike, comfortable and happy in their barren surroundings. Their hair is long and unbound, flowing in black waves over their shoulders. They smile softly, and the one in the middle has her eyes closed in something like bliss. The women, or something like them, are reflected in the pool in front of them. Their reflections tell a different story, a story of three witches. One of the witches, as you can clearly see, has grown tall and gaunt. Her reflected face, distorted by the ripples of the water, is full of malice and rage, her iron coloured hair is tangled, and her lips are curled in hate. Opposite her reflection is that of one of her sisters. She appears small and wizened, with a look of great cunning on her face, with a faded appearance. She gives the impression, somehow, that she is sneaking into the background of your life, to wreak havoc without ever being noticed. Her countenance is distorted and wry. She looks like a person who likes to hide in kitchen cupboards. You can see her. Do you agree? The woman in the middle, the one with her eyes closed, is the only one reflected at all close to her original form. Her hair is still a gleaming black. Her face still smiles, slightly. Her body is still plump and relaxed. But her eyes are open. Widened. Her eyes are a terrible, blinding red. Look at her red eyes. What does she see? Does she see her doppelganger across the room? Is she confused as to who was born first? It is difficult to say what begets what. Looking at the whole painting, this could be simply a trio of witches from a play. It could be about the inherent duplicitousness of human nature, the attractive serenity we show to the world, and the turmoil we conceal. It could be about the risks of trusting anyone too much, of the impossibility of guessing at someone’s true nature or motives. What is trust? Can you find it in a painting? You will think it odd, perhaps to have two such similar paintings in one exhibition. The Three Sisters is considered by many to be one of Atieno’s definitive works, so it’s presence here is hardly mysterious. As to Nguyen’s piece, that is on loan from my own private collection. I felt it was important for you to see it. Feel free to pause the cassette and go look at Women Alone again, on the opposite wall. Or just wait till the audioguide is finished. It is almost finished. It is an interesting thing, to have loved and admired someone so much. To have stood in awe of their work, to have enjoyed their company, to have trusted their integrity. When you lose that feeling of admiration it is as if you have lost the person, themselves. The person you loved is gone, and in their place stands a stranger who wears their skin. Is it only when someone has betrayed you personally, that you are allowed to feel betrayed? If your affection and admiration for someone is bound up in an image of them that turns out to be false, are you not right to feel anger? Vanessa’s career was ruined by the suspicion that she copied Atieno’s work, but it’s simply not what happened. I do not know when Atieno began work on The Three Sisters, but it did not premiere until 1967. Women Alone was being painted as early as 1963. I saw it, unfinished, at Vanessa’s studio in Cardiff. I remember this because Vanessa told me then that Claudia Atieno had attended an exhibition of Vanessa’s work at a gallery in Munich. Vanessa and I were young artists, swayed by celebrity. We swooned and smiled about this fortuitous moment in Vanessa’s young career. Claudia asked Vanessa what else she was creating. Vanessa told her about Women Alone. Claudia told her it was a brilliant concept, and that Vanessa was just the artist to pull it off. “But I do not like the title,” Claudia told her. “In art, framing is all.” I’ll never forget that. “Framing is all.” I took it to mean that how you title your piece sets the tone for the viewer’s experience. But as I saw The Three Sisters go up at the grand opening of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, I knew she meant framing literally. Getting it on the wall. Get the idea into a frame, and it is yours. Framing is all. Vanessa showed Women Alone at a private exhibit in London, and Alfra Bond of The Times, ridiculed the young artist, calling her a plagiarist, stealing from an artist too famous to be copied without people noticing. Bond thought Vanessa should have at least taken an idea from a lesser known, but more thought-provoking artist. Bond conceded she liked Vanessa’s version better, but the implications of thievery, and the fact that Vanessa refused to admit anything nor apologize, led to fewer and fewer showings of her work. I bought Women Alone from her two years ago. I know its truth. I know what the reflected woman with the red eyes sees. I am sorry, this is perhaps a debate for a different medium. We are here to talk about art, after all. But then shouldn’t art concern itself with honestly? A discussion for another time, I suppose. Did you go back and look at Women Alone again? Do that now. #TONE# Category:Transcripts